Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Mousavi: "This Movement Will Continue"

Popularly-mandated Iranian presidential election candidate, Mir Hossein Mousavi, referring to ongoing resistance to the official election result, declared Monday in Tehran that "this movement will continue," according to a report on Parsine.com.

In statesman-like comments, Mousavi insisted that the government had no legitimacy because of the popular vote, but that nevertheless "we must proceed through the framework of the law."

Mousavi was addressing guests in the informal setting of an art gallery, on a holiday in honor of Shiite saint, Imam Ali.

The statements are a continuation of a recent policy of not giving grounds to the government for accusing him of formenting public disorder.

Mr. Mousavi also spoke to relatives of those detained in a side meeting to his attendance. He also met with Mehdi Karoubi and former president Mohammad Khatami on Monday and the trio called for the immediate release of detained protesters, his website reported.

Despite his low-key address there was no indication that a protest rally scheduled for Thursday in the center of Tehran, adjacent to the university was cancelled. That day is also the ten-year anniversary of the Basij militia raid on Tehran University to suppress student protest. In addition to the scheduled Tehran march, rallies are also planned for other Iranian cities, including Shiraz, Mashhad, Esfahan and Tabriz, according to an editorial on TehranReport.com.

A sandstorm continues to blow through Tehran and much of Iran. In a sign of government nerves, SMS text messaging services, which had been functioning again for the last five days were again cut off in the capital. The state-controlled media outlet, PressTV.ir has been silent on political developments for the last 24 hours.